Dad and I traveled together as far as London, where we had decided to say our good-byes on the platform of King’s Cross station.

“Take these to share with your friends,” Dad said, handing over an expensive box of chocolates. I was going to make the journey north to Wyldcliffe on my own, and Dad was returning to his duties in the army. He was still young and fit—well, not so young now, but definitely attractive—and as we waited together in those limbo moments, I wondered why he had never married again. The answer flashed into my head: Because of you, Evie, because of you…. I felt a quick pain in my heart when I thought of everything he had done for me, and I hugged him tight.

“Have a good term.” He smiled. “And write to me.”

“Of course. Every week.”

“Evie…” Dad hesitated. “Promise me you’ll look after yourself. I worry about you. You’re growing up so quickly.”

“I’m fine, Dad. Honestly.” I climbed aboard and the train began to pull away. I leaned out of the window and waved as the platform was left behind and Dad got smaller, looking somehow diminished and gray in the distance. “I’m fine,” I whispered, then dropped onto a seat, stuffing the chocolates into my bag. At least this time I had friends to share them with: two solitary friends out of the massed ranks of snobby, unwelcoming Wyldcliffe students. When I had taken this train back in September I had been a new girl going into the unknown, but now Sarah and Helen would be waiting for me when I arrived at school.

I was longing to see them both. They were more than my friends; they were my family—my sisters. The three of us were bound by mysterious ties that still astonished me. We had been drawn into a world of beauty and danger, and each of us had a powerful elemental connection. Water for Evie, earth for Sarah, air for Helen… There was nothing we couldn’t do, I told myself, if we stayed true to one another and to our secret sister, Lady Agnes Templeton. She was my distant ancestor, the fourth member of our Circle and the servant of the sacred fire. As the train gathered speed through the dreary suburbs, everything that had happened last term churned around my head like an endless mantra: Agnes, Sebastian…Fire, water, earth, air…Agnes…Sebastian…Sebastian…

Sebastian. My first, my only love.

I’m coming back, I tried to tell him. I’m coming back to Wyldcliffe. And I seemed to hear an echo in my head: Come back, come back, come back….

I touched the silver necklace that was hanging on a slender new chain under my shirt. The necklace had been a gift from Frankie before she died, a pretty trinket with a sparkling crystal at its center. It had always been in our family, but if anyone had told me a few months ago that it was known as the Talisman, and that it was an heirloom of the Mystic Way, sealed with elemental forces, I would have laughed. Great joke. I didn’t do weird stuff, paranormal, Wicca, magic—whatever you wanted to call it. I had been the last person on earth who fancied the idea of chanting around a bonfire under the moon.

I wasn’t laughing now, though. Everything that had happened in my first term at Wyldcliffe had changed me forever. I had a new reality, however incredible it seemed.

Sebastian James Fairfax, it said on his gravestone. Born in 1865. It is thought he departed this Life in 1884, by his own hand. God rest his soul. Sebastian hadn’t died, though. Young, impetuous, and restless, he had been loved by Agnes all those years ago. When they had stumbled across the ancient teachings of the Mystic Way, Sebastian had ignored her warnings and searched too far and too deep, corrupting its sacred powers in a doomed quest for immortality. He had learned to prolong his existence, but ultimately he had only half fulfilled his tormented search for everlasting life. Now he was bound by the terrible masters he had served, the Unconquered, who had cheated death and lived forever in the shadows. They would ensure that Sebastian would pay the price for his failure to join their ranks.

The ugly buildings and sparse trees that flashed past the train looked so real and solid and normal. But my world was not like that anymore. I had left normal behind when I had first met Sebastian in the September twilight. Now I lived in a world of unseen powers and impossibilities.

My dreadful, unimaginable reality was that Sebastian was doomed to fade, to wither in body and spirit until he was a demon, a slave of the Unconquered, not their equal. His only hope—the one desperate option left to him—was to take the Talisman and use its mystical powers to become one of the Unconquered himself. And the only way he could possess the Talisman was to kill me.

Sometimes, reality was too painful to bear.

I shifted in my seat and rested my aching head on the cool glass of the window. A memory forced itself into my mind; I saw an underground crypt lit by flickering torches and a crowd of hooded women, the coven of Dark Sisters who had once served Sebastian. They were chanting in a wild frenzy, desperate for Sebastian to claim the Talisman and lead them to eternal life. Sarah and Helen and I had been trapped there, and yet—and yet—when it seemed that we were beaten and that Sebastian would tear the Talisman from me, he had refused to hurt me. I love you…I love you, girl from the sea. His love had given me the courage to reach out to my elemental powers, and I had raised a storm that had swept the coven away. But when it was all over, Sebastian had disappeared. His black horse had been found wandering over the moors, and all trace of its rider had vanished.

I had to see him again, though. Dreams weren’t enough. Memories weren’t enough. I was going back to Wyldcliffe to find Sebastian, but I didn’t know what would be waiting for me. All I could do was ask myself the same unanswerable questions for the hundredth time. What was Sebastian’s reality—his love for me or his need for the Talisman? Would he stay true to his brief words of love? Or would he, in the end, betray me in order to save himself?

“Come on, come on, hurry up,” I muttered under my breath to the train. I had to get to Wyldcliffe. I had to know the truth.